


Wait On You

by chamel



Series: You Left Me Under Your Spell: A Collection of CaraDin Short Stories [15]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, First Kiss, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Helmetless Din Djarin, Mistaken Identity, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, POV Din Djarin, Post-Season/Series 02, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29178729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamel/pseuds/chamel
Summary: “Haven’t seen you around here before,” she says eventually.You have, he just resists saying. Instead he shrugs and takes a sip of his drink, staring off across the cantina and decidedly avoiding her eviscerating gaze. He doesn’t want to flat out lie to her, but he also has no real desire to get into it with her right now either....She regards him in silence for another minute, tipping her head slightly like she needs a new perspective. “There’s something about you,” she mutters, half to herself. “Almost familiar.”(Canon-divergent AU where Cara doesn't go with Din after he gets Mayfeld's location from her, and months after the final events of season 2 he returns to Nevarro in a rather unexpected way.)
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cara Dune
Series: You Left Me Under Your Spell: A Collection of CaraDin Short Stories [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680589
Comments: 40
Kudos: 121





	Wait On You

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by [an anonymous tumblr prompt](https://cha-melodius.tumblr.com/post/642114551525031936/its-me-the-previous-anon-im-so-glad-you-take); if you're reading this, thank you anon! I don't typically write a lot of canon divergence AUs but this was a lot of fun. I leaned into the angsty part of your prompt a bit (but of course we have a romantic happy ending!) and I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> A little bit about the setup: most of this is alluded to in the fic, but basically Din got Mayfeld's location from Cara but refused her help because he didn't want to endanger her standing with the New Republic. The rest of the season happened pretty much the same way, except Cara wasn't there.
> 
> Title/lyrics from the song "Die Waiting" by Beck.

_I can't understand why I've waited for so long_  
_Just to walk out of the door, see the world moving on_  
_And I lay down in the sun with the moonlight in my eyes_  
_If it takes a lifetime, then you know I'll die trying_

Something in his chest tightens the moment he comes out of hyperspace and sees the achingly familiar planet below him. It feels like it’s been a long time, and somehow not nearly long enough. Nevarro would not have been his choice for a stop, if he’d had any say in the matter, but when a high-paying client demands you jump, you say, ‘how high?’

Or, at least that’s what it feels like these days.

He shakes his head, trying to chase away the memories and regrets that threaten to come flooding to the foreground. He should have refused. This place… there’s nothing but sorrow here.

The trip through the atmosphere that he’s so accustomed to is oddly smooth, and not for the first time he realizes what a rust bucket the Razor Crest had been. Always threatening to shake apart on nearly every descent, and he’d just thought it was how things were. Never considered that it might be the ship itself that made things difficult. His new ship is lighter, more maneuverable, more fuel efficient, and all around a much better ship

He still hates that it’s not the Razor Crest. Kriff, he misses that ship.

He drops into a landing field far from the city center; the last thing he needs are people snooping around. The last thing he needs is to be _recognized_. It’s a more straightforward proposition than it once was. He pauses at the bottom of the cockpit ladder to strip off the beskar plates and stow them securely in their designated cabinet. Then he pulls off the various pads and base layers until he’s left in a simple brown shirt and pants. The heavy leather jacket he puts on in his armor’s place won’t do much against blaster bolts, but it makes him feel marginally better anyway. He still feels naked without the beskar on, though, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon. In this case, the anonymity is worth the risk. He’s not expecting trouble, anyway.

Before he departs the ship he grabs a three-quarter length grey cloak and slings it over his shoulders, his one indulgence to a bit of a flare for the dramatic. Not that he would admit that. It was just— he’s worn that cape for so long, it’s nearly as integral to himself as the beskar. With the cloak, he doesn’t lose the feeling of the wind twisting the fabric or the way it brushes against the backs of his legs. Plus, it gives him the sense of concealment that he craves, always.

The walk to town is longer than he remembers, and the sun is mercilessly bright without the moderating effect of his helmet visor. He’d be sweating like a puffer pig if the planet wasn’t so kriffing dry and windy that all moisture seems to evaporate before it even has time to soak through his clothes. There’s still a little more than an hour before he has to meet his client, so it seems like a drink is order for the dual purpose of killing time and staving off dehydration. Certainly not a past-time he could indulge in before.

His feet take him to the cantina before he can even really think about it, and it’s probably not the best idea, but he can’t quite help himself, either. The lure of seeing his old haunt is too strong, to check in on people he called friends in what feels like a previous lifetime. He can’t decide if he wants her to be there or not.

Probably not.

He grabs a table at the perimeter— _not_ his usual one, he’s not that stupid—and drops into the chair, scanning the room in what he hopes is a subtle way. Sometimes it still gets him in trouble, the things his face does without his permission. This time no one seems to notice him except the server, who shows up at his table a moment later to take his drink order.

Good. He’s more than happy to just sit and brood in the corner, unmolested.

At first pass, it seems neither of them are there, which should be a good thing. Well, it’s not that he doesn’t want to see Greef, but the man can hardly keep a secret, so if it’s anonymity he’s after it’ll be best to avoid the magistrate. A few patrons come and go as he sits there, nursing his drink; he watches them silently and tries to forget about the past.

Her laugh carries through the open door of the cantina long before she walks in. That should be his cue to leave, to get out of there by the rear door and leave it all behind, but he’s seemingly frozen to the spot. Instead his hand closes more tightly around his drink and he slumps back further into the shadows. Maybe she won’t stay long. Maybe he can just… see how she’s doing, and she’ll never know.

That’s not weird, is it? Ok, it’s maybe a little weird.

She steps into the cantina with a small shake of her head, pushing her hair back out of her face as she does so. The months since he last saw her have treated her well, unsurprisingly; her skin has a sun-burnished glow and she looks happy. Pretty much like she looked when he first returned to Nevarro with the kid and saw her in her new role as marshal.

He really doesn’t want to contemplate why that thought makes his heart ache.

Her gaze sweeps across the room, lingering on each patron in turn, until it finally falls on him. It would be nice to think he imagines the way she pauses longer, the perpetual smirk on her lips faltering just a touch, but he knows he doesn’t. There’s no way she recognizes him—she _can’t_ —but something stops her regardless. He knew this was a mistake.

“Buy you an ale, Marshal?” someone calls from across the room.

“Another time, Mik,” she answers, a little absently, without turning to look at the other person.

The scrutiny he undergoes as she walks slowly but purposefully toward his table is completely unnerving. Probably just does this to anyone new in the area that she doesn’t know, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. She slides into the chair opposite him without asking and leans forward with her elbows on the table, never once breaking eye contact. A few moments later, the server comes and deposits her favorite whiskey on the table wordlessly; he recognizes it by the characteristic color.

“Haven’t seen you around here before,” she says eventually.

 _You have_ , he just resists saying. Instead he shrugs and takes a sip of his drink, staring off across the cantina and decidedly avoiding her eviscerating gaze. He doesn’t want to flat out lie to her, but he also has no real desire to get into it with her right now either. “Just here to meet a client.”

“Client, huh? You guild?”

“Yes,” he answers without elaborating.

She regards him in silence for another minute, tipping her head slightly like she needs a new perspective. “There’s something about you,” she mutters, half to herself. “Almost familiar.”

“Guess I just have one of those faces.”

She considers this for a moment. “Nahhh. I don’t think so. I’d definitely remember your face.”

He has no idea what to make of that. The look she’s giving him now as she sips her own drink is unmistakably heated, and it takes him completely by surprise. Is she… _flirting_ with him? Surely not.

“I’m Cara,” she offers.

Well, it was nice while it lasted, to pretend they could sit together peacefully. But he can’t _not_ introduce himself, and giving a fake name seems absurd. So he bites back a sigh and says, “Din.”

Predictably her eyebrows arc skyward at that, but there’s no new flash of recognition in her eyes. She looks thoughtful for a moment, and something complicated flits across her expression, but then it clears and she smiles at him again.

“I was friends with a guy named Din.”

Oh. He supposes that it makes some sense that she would come to this conclusion, given that as far as she knows there’s no way in hell the man she knows would be sitting here without his helmet or armor. He’s so surprised that he almost misses the significance of the first part of that sentence.

“Was?” he asks, cursing how tight his voice sounds. He takes a drink to try to cover it, but the liquor that had tasted reasonably good is only bitter on his tongue now.

It’s her turn to shrug. “Still am, I guess.”

“You guess?”

Dank farrik, why is he doing this to himself? He should go meet his client and get out of here. Literally nothing good can come of this. Still, he can’t quite stop himself either, because apparently he’s a masochist.

“Well, I suppose you’d have to ask him. We didn’t exactly part on good terms. I offered to help, he didn’t want me around…” She shrugs again and takes a long pull of her whiskey.

“That’s—” _not true at all_ , Din just stops himself from saying, practically biting his tongue in the middle of the sentence. Her eyes flit over to him, and he casts about for something to say. “Uh, that’s too bad.”

“It is what it is.”

“Maybe he was just trying to protect you.” The words are out of his mouth before he even knows he’s going to say them, and he regrets them immediately. The look Cara gives him could freeze water on Mustafar, and without his helmet and armor he feels utterly naked in the face of it.

“I don’t need protection. _He’s_ the one always getting himself in trouble. Anyway, it’s been months now since I’ve heard from him. Either he’s dead, or he’s not interested. I’m done waiting around for him.”

“You were waiting for him?” he asks, so quiet he’s not sure she’ll hear him.

“Not anymore.” With that, she pulls a flirtatious grin back onto her face and leans forward to emphasize her cleavage in what he assumes is a completely intentional way. He gulps and has to pry his eyes back to hers, and when he does she _winks_ at him. “But enough about him. Tell me about yourself.”

Din springs to his feet, nearly sending his chair clattering to the ground behind him. “I have to go,” he says quickly. “I’m— going to be late for my meeting.”

“Find me when you’re done, if you want,” she offers easily, unperturbed by his haste. “Just ask around for the marshal.”

“Yeah, ok,” he says, knowing he’ll do no such thing, and flees the cantina.

This was a mistake. Coming to Nevarro, going to the cantina, talking to her… all of it was a horrible mistake. He had been doing perfectly fine in his ignorance. When he’d left Nevarro after getting Mayfeld’s location from Cara, he’d known she was upset with him, but he was doing what he thought was right. He wasn’t going to let her screw up her position with the New Republic for him, not after everything she’d been through to get it.

And then it was all over, and he’d felt empty in a way he hadn’t known was possible. The argument had still been fresh in his mind during a time when he’d been desperate for someone to talk to, but he’d convinced himself that she wouldn’t want to see him, that he didn’t have a right to ask for her help in this. So he’d stayed away, taking whatever terrible contracts he could manage to find that would get him credits for enough fuel to visit Grogu at Skywalker’s school as frequently as he could manage. His life now left him little time to reflect on the past, which was usually a good thing.

And now he finds out that this whole time she’s been thinking he doesn’t want to see her? That she’d been _waiting_ for him? For what, exactly? He’s not _stupid_ , he knows what she was implying with her invitation today, but surely that can’t be related to assertion that she was done waiting. Surely it doesn’t really _mean_ anything. Even if it did, well, she said it herself. _Not anymore_.

Din goes to his meeting. He listens to the client, enough at least to make sure he’s got the information he needs, but the entire time his thoughts are consumed with Cara. Dissecting every word she uttered, every expression on her face. When the meeting is done he knows he should leave, that it would be better for everyone if he just let her move on like it seems she wants to, but he can’t. He has the quash the absurd urge to go back to his ship and put on all his armor, to show up at Cara’s doorstep in a form he knows she’ll know and hope she might forgive him. He recognizes the impulse to hide for what it is, though, and Cara doesn’t deserve that.

It’s late enough when he gets done that he knows she’s likely to be either at home or the cantina, and on a hunch he heads to the little bungalow tucked away down a side street that he knows is hers. The garden has grown substantially since he was last here, full of blooms that are both exotic and yet perfectly suited to the climate. She’s let it go a little wild, and it suits her.

The lights are on inside, and he almost turns right around and leaves, but he forces himself to climb the stairs and knock on the door. A few moments later it swings open to reveal Cara like he’s never seen her before. Her hair is down, crimped into flowing waves on the side that she usually wears braided, and she’s not wearing her armor. Instead, she’s got on a low-cut shirt that clings to her every curve and a pair of loose pants. He’s never seen her so dressed-down, even during the weeks on Sorgan, and the entire effect makes his mouth go dry.

“Hello, handsome,” she practically purrs from where she leans on the doorframe in a truly sinful fashion. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

Din has to take a steadying breath. This is _far_ more overwhelming than he was expecting. “We need to talk.”

Cara cocks an eyebrow at this clearly unexpected response, then stands up a little straighter, stepping back to open the door wider. “You want to come in?”

It feels weird, being invited into her home under what are essentially false pretenses. He’s been inside before, when he first returned to Nevarro and she’d shown him around a bit, but not like this. Not with Cara looking at him almost hungrily, which is at once thrilling and disconcerting. He steps into the living room and takes a seat on the couch when she gestures to it in invitation.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asks, heading toward her well-stocked liquor cabinet.

“Yeah. Whatever you’re drinking.”

Because she _has_ been drinking. He can see it in the looseness of her gait, can hear it in the lilt of her speech. Not enough to be drunk, but enough to have an effect, which he knows from experience is a decent amount of booze. He decidedly does not want to think about the possibility that she’s been drinking because of their earlier conversation about _him_.

Once she has poured two glasses of whiskey—unsurprisingly—she makes her way back over to the couch and sits down facing him with one arm folded over the backrest. And, well, he’s never known Cara to be _shy_ , but he’s never quite experienced this side of her either. Her body is exquisitely warm through the thin fabric of her shirt as she presses up against his side, and all at once he knows he wants nothing more than to take her into his arms and, frankly, let her do whatever she wants to him. That’s not what he’s here for, though.

“So I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting that we’d do a lot of _talking_ tonight,” she says. The hand that’s not holding her tumbler drags a line up his arm and over the line of his shoulder, her fingers pressing suggestively through his shirt, and Din has to close his eyes for a moment to try to regain some of his crumbling composure. “But I’m game. What did you want to talk about?”

“Cara, it’s me,” he manages.

“Yes, we met earlier,” she all but giggles. Her hand has not stopped its exploration of his body, having now moved on to trail across his chest, and he has to suppress a shudder at the sensation. He’d never really _allowed_ himself to think about Cara this way, not really, but now that she’s practically in his lap he can hardly think of anything else.

He forces his eyes open and catches her hand in one of his so that her gaze snaps up to his face. “No. We met on Sorgan, almost a year ago. It’s me, Cara. Din.”

Cara snatches her hand back like she’s been burned, lurching away from him on the couch as she glares at him, and he feels his heart sink. “That’s not funny.”

“What?” he blinks at her, confused by this reaction. “It’s not a joke.”

“Look, I don’t know who you are, or why you thought coming here to mess with me was a good idea, but I assure you, it was not,” she says as she stands up, putting more distance between them. “And now you better leave before I do something you’ll regret.”

Din has no illusions about what she could do to him if pushed, especially without his armor on to absorb the force of her blows, but a lack of a desire to get hurt is the least of the reasons he doesn’t want to fight with her. Getting slowly to his feet, he puts his hands up in surrender and tries to look as nonthreatening as possible.

“ _Please_ ,” he pleads, “I’m not lying. This isn’t a joke. My name is Din Djarin, and I’m a Mandalorian, and my foundling is a fifty-year-old green toddler.”

If anything, her expression darkens even more. “Prove it.”

Carefully, Din reaches into his pocket and pulls out his guild membership chip, then tosses it on the table between them. Once he has backed away, Cara steps forward to grab it and flicks on the identification projection. Din’s helmeted visage appears along with his guild number for a moment, but then she suddenly drops the chip and pulls a blaster from gods know where.

“Where did you get that?” she snarls, a look of pure fury on her face. “Did you kill him?”

“Kriff, no! Cara, just wait a minute— let me— you have a scar on your palm!” he says in a rush, grasping desperately at straws. “And you like to tell people that you got grabbing a knife in a fight at a cantina, but really you got it when you were a kid. Your mother told you to stay away from the razor grass, but you didn’t, and you needed ten stitches.”

The anger had slowly drained from her face as he spoke until all that was left was utter shock. She’d told him this story one particularly drunken night on Sorgan and made him swear not to tell a soul, then punched him hard in the arm when he laughed at her. It had been such a wonderful, carefree evening, after the AT-ST but before the other hunters had found him and the kid. Might as well have been a hundred years ago, with everything that had happened since.

“Din,” she says, her voice wavering slightly as she lowers the blaster and her gaze sweeps over his body, “it’s really you?”

“Yeah. It’s me,” he nods, slowly dropping his hands back to his sides.

When her eyes reach his face again they drop to the floor automatically, as if she hadn’t already looked at him many times that day. As if he had any right to demand she avert her eyes. It would be almost funny if he wasn’t feeling so emotionally wrung out right now.

“What happened?”

Din sighs heavily. “A lot. Can we— can we sit down again?”

“Yeah, sure,” she answers, but she doesn’t sit down just yet. “I need another drink, I think. You?”  
  
“Yeah.”

A heavy silence falls over the room as Cara tops up their glasses with generous pours of whiskey, and he wishes he had some idea of what was going through her head right now. Is she glad to see him? Mad about the deception? Upset that he’d shown up here without his armor or the kid? But her face is so carefully controlled she might as well be wearing a Mandalorian helmet. Eventually she comes and sits down next to him on the couch again, this time leaving a careful distance between them that feels disturbingly like a chasm.

“The kid is fine,” he says immediately, “great, even. And I promise, I’ll tell you everything that happened, but first can we… can we talk about us? About… what you said earlier?”

“I don’t know what more you want me to say,” she almost mumbles. She’s still averting her gaze, staring off across the room now.

“Cara, look at me, please,” he pleads. His hands itch to reach out and turn her face toward him, but he doesn’t think he’d be allowed. The thought that he might have been allowed _before_ makes something ache deep inside him; the chasm between them looms, forbidding in its uncrossability.

Finally she acquiesces, and when she does her gaze is so intense that it’s as if she’s seeing him for the first time. It’s almost _too much_ , when having people stare at his face had long since stopped being _too much_. Suddenly he feels like he’s back on Morak, tongue-tied and helpless to answer even basic questions, unable to really control what his face is doing. He almost looks away himself, but that would entirely defeat the point, so he forces himself to meet her gaze. He came here to say something, and he’s going to say it.

“Did you mean what you said?” he asks. “Were you… were you waiting for me?”

Cara frowns, like she doesn’t remember saying it. “I guess I was.”

“Why?”

There’s a long pause, and Din can tell she wants to look away, but she doesn’t. She holds his gaze until it’s long past uncomfortable, and then sighs, “do I really have to say it?”

“Please, Cara. I don’t understand,” he says, and he can tell immediately it was the wrong thing to say.

“Well then I guess that makes me even more of an idiot,” she mutters bitterly, lips twisting into a frown. When he doesn’t reply, she huffs and finally looks away again, sipping her whiskey. “There was a connection between us. You can’t tell me you didn’t feel it, because I know you did. And maybe it was a mistake to stay here in the first place instead of going with you, after the battle, but I was scared, ok? I’d never really felt that way about someone before. I thought I needed stability, and maybe I did. But I guess there was always some part of me that hoped that something might happen between us, eventually.”

“Even after the last time? You said it yourself, we didn’t part on good terms.”

The glare Cara shoots him is withering, like he’s being particularly stupid. Which is probably fair. “One rough argument isn’t going to make me stop caring about you, you dolt. Why, did you think I wouldn’t want to see you?”

Din closes his eyes and presses his lips together because he doesn’t want to admit that that is _exactly_ what he thought, which is as much an admission as anything.

“Kriff, you _did_ ,” she gasps.

It’s hard not to think about how different this conversation would be going if she couldn’t see his face. Not better, per se, but certainly different. When he opens his eyes he finds her staring at him in disbelief, reading gods-know-what in his expression. “Cara, I—”

“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” she says bluntly. “And it’s not just about you, anyway. You know I care about the kid.”

He does know. It was what had made their argument so heated. “I’m sorry,” he says, almost a sigh. “For not coming earlier, and for refusing your help in the first place. You offered, and I was an ass who thought I knew what you wanted better than you. I just couldn't stand the thought that you could lose everything you’ve worked so hard to build here for me. For us.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s important to me,” she replies, but it lacks the sharpness he’d been expecting. Instead she just sounds kind of weary, and somehow that hurts more.

“I know.”

“And now you just show up without your armor on, acting like nothing is wrong. What _happened_? Where is the kid?”

“Grogu,” Din says quietly, staring down at his hands. “His name is Grogu.”

It’s both easier and harder to talk about it than he thought it would be. He tells her about Morak and the terminal, about the fight on Gideon’s cruiser and the arrival of Skywalker. He tells her about the Jedi school and all the progress Grogu has made already, and how the whole thing makes him ridiculously proud and ridiculously sad at the same time. Through all of it she listens intently, offering the occasional comment but never pressing for more than he’s ready to give.

“I wish I had been there with you,” she says, almost wistful, when he finishes.

“I wish you had too. There were times— well, I could have used someone to talk to. Someone who really knows me.”

“I was always just a holo away, you know.”

“I know. I just—” His voice fails him as he struggles to put his thoughts into words, and he shakes his head in frustration.

“Hey, it’s ok,” Cara says soothingly. “I understand.”

She scoots forward on the couch until she’s sitting next to him again; not as close as before, but she has crossed the chasm of space between them. Then, before he even understands what is happening, she pulls him toward her and wraps her arms around him in a hug. He stiffens in surprise before he can stop himself, but mercifully she doesn’t let go. Maybe she can tell that it’s just an involuntary reaction, maybe she understands implicitly how long it’s been since he’s been since he’s been hugged like this. He wouldn’t put it past her.

Din wills himself to relax into her embrace, slipping his own arms around her waist and letting himself bury his face in her hair, and _this_ is a wholly novel sensation. The scent of her overwhelms him—the subtle fruitiness of her soap, the hint of sweat after a long day in the sun, and something else that uniquely her—as he takes a deep, steadying breath that sets a wonderful warmth blooming within his chest. He thinks, absurdly, that he could be happy to just sit like this forever, but even as he does she’s pulling back slightly, and he has to quash a surge of disappointment. He’s so sure that she’s leaving now that he’s completely unprepared when she leans forward and presses their foreheads together.

The warmth in his chest ignites into a searing flame, pressing on his lungs until he can barely breathe against it. One of Cara’s hands slides up to curl behind the base of his skull, her fingers pushing gently through his hair as her thumb ghosts across the skin of his cheek. Her head moves a tiny amount, just enough to brush the tips of their noses together, and Din forgets how to breathe entirely.

“Promise me you won’t make me wait like that again,” she murmurs.

“I promise,” he answers, trying to imbue the words with a weight that conveys just how much he means them.

The corners of her mouth twitch upward at that and she nudges forward to capture his lips in a soft kiss. It’s brief and chaste, little more than the barest brush against his mouth, and then she’s sitting back again with that gentle smile still on her face.

“Cara—” he croaks, his voice thick with emotion, but he has no idea what to say. Instead he pulls her forward, and this time when their lips meet they are both open-mouthed and hungry.

It seems almost impossible that this is really happening, but Cara is pressing eagerly against him again, and he can feel the muscles of her waist flexing through her shirt under his palms. She kisses him eagerly, sucking at his lower lip to draw a low moan from Din’s throat before pressing forward again to lick enthusiastically past his teeth. They kiss long and deep, until they’re both breathless when they finally break apart.

“You could stay here tonight,” she suggests between short kisses, as if she’s drawing breath as much from him as she is from the actual air.

“Are you sure?” Din asks, trying not to sound too shocked by the suggestion. True, she _did_ invite him here for presumably just such a thing, but that was before.

Cara huffs a laugh at this. “Course I’m sure. But I have to warn you, I’m supposed to meet with Greef early tomorrow morning, so the only thing we’ll be doing in that bed tonight is sleeping.”

“You’re the one who answered the door in… that,” he points out, flushing hotly as he gestures vaguely to the low-cut top that so devastatingly shows off her generous cleavage.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to be talking for several hours, did I?”

“I guess not,” he allows. Then he realizes she’s still waiting for an answer. “I’d love to. Sleep here, that is. My ship is a long walk away, after all. Should I take the couch?” he asks, unable to help the hopelessly smitten grin on his face.

Cara punches him playfully in the shoulder for that. “Hardly,” she says, getting to her feet and pulling him up by one hand. “Come on, then.”

She leads him across the house to the bedroom, depositing him on one side of the bed before she walks around to the other. Without a moment’s hesitation she strips to her shirt and panties, smirking when she finds him frozen in place and staring despite himself.

“Sorry, I—” he starts, tearing his gaze away, but she interrupts him with a laugh.

“It’s fine, Din. You’re allowed to look,” she says as she slides under the covers. Then she adds, “I like it.”

Din is pretty sure he short circuits somewhere at that, and at the look she’s currently giving him. He can feel his face heat, and the knowledge that she can see all of it only makes him flush hotter.

“You coming?” she prompts.

He manages a nod as he follows her lead, stripping down to his own underwear and getting into the bed before he can think too hard about what he’s doing. Almost immediately she scoots over to him, tucking herself under his shoulder and wrapping an arm around his waist. He expects it to feel awkward, or at least a little tense, but it’s nothing of the sort; their bodies fit together with a surprisingly easy familiarity.

Despite her earlier warning about needing to sleep, Cara seems in no rush just yet. Her hand trails a wandering path over the skin of his chest and abdomen, almost pensive, which is somehow electrifying and relaxing all at once.

“Do you really think I’m handsome?” he asks playfully, half a joke and half not.

Din can feel the way her mouth curls into a smirk. “It’s not really a matter of what I think. Empirically, you are extremely handsome.”

“Hmm,” he hums uncertainly as he gently combs his hand through her hair, reveling in the way the soft, wavy locks twine around his fingers. It’s not that he doesn’t believe her, but he’s never really thought of himself that way before, and it’s odd to do so now.

She tips her head slightly to peer up at him, one of her eyebrows quirked upward. “You can’t tell me that I’m the first person to hit on you since you’ve being going helmetless.”

“I suppose not,” he allows. “I still wear it most of the time, though.”

“But not today.”

“Not today.”

The reasons lay unspoken, but understood, between them.

“What would have happened had I not approached you at the cantina?” she asks. It’s a reasonable question, but not one he particularly likes to think about now. “Would you have left again without saying anything?”  
  
“Maybe,” he admits. “But I think, subconsciously, I wanted you to find me.”

“Good thing you’re so handsome, then,” she replies with a grin.

Din laughs softly, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple as she grabs his free hand, absently lacing and unlacing their fingers together.

“I lied before,” she murmurs a little while later.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think I ever really would have stopped waiting for you.”

She looks up at him, then, but Din’s throat is tight with too many emotions to be able to say anything to that. So he kisses her instead, promising—again and again—that she’ll never have to.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! My inspiration is all over the place lately (and I'm still terribly behind on commenting, I am so sorry) but I'd love to hear if you enjoyed this!


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